Aria's new tricks

Aria's uncle Ryan taught her some new tricks:


She also surprised us all this week by counting to 10. Watching Sesame Street has apparently paid off. I would've never thought she'd be able to do that at only 20 months old. We'll get that on video soon enough.

Holiday Fun in Utah

We headed to Utah to visit Tara's family for the holidays. One of the 1st orders of business was to get rid of the little mullet Aria has been growing. Her Aunt Dani did a great job.

BEFORE

AFTER


We also went and visited Dane's grandmother (Oma).


Tara put together a pretty snazzy ginger-bread house.


On Christmas Eve we dressed up to re-enact the Christmas story.



Aria also had a lot of fun playing with her Aunts and Uncles. She sure loves all the attention being the 1st grand child. Here she is swirling in circles with Shannon:


Here Shara is playing telephone with her:


We also went and took Aria sledding for the 1st time. Unfortunately she fell out of the sled pretty early into our excursion and decided that sledding wasn't for her.





We also have to note the fun things Aria says. She seems to pick up on what we're saying, but repeats what we would say to her when something happens to her. Here are a couple examples:

1) When she wants to hand us something she says "thank you" as she stretches out her arm with the item (since we usually say thank you when she hands us something).
2) When she bumps her head she says "sorry" (since we usually say "I'm sorry whenever she bumps her head).
3) When we point to a picture of her and ask "who's that", she responds by saing "you!" (since if she doesn't respond, we say "it's you!").

Mesa Temple

Tara and the young women from church had quite a weekend. On Friday night they had a sleepover, on Saturday went up to the Mesa Temple, then saw "New Moon" in the theater, and finished it off with checking out the Christmas lights at the temple.

Winterhaven

We went over to the Winterhaven neighborhood with the Campbells and checked out the Christmas lights. I wasn't expecting to see the Bellagio from Vegas, but somebody had it basically set up in their yard, with lights and shooting water set to music. I've never seen such a festive neighborhood. Below are a few pics:

Santa

Santa had a booth set up at the mall, and Tara took Aria to see him. As you might expect, she was scared of him and cried miserably when she was put on his lap, (probably assuming his big tummy was the result of eating other small children, and she was next.) But then Santa gave her a gummy worm, and then she realized he wasn't all bad, but she still wanted to go. Later, she was given a 2nd gummy worm, and Tara was (barely) able to talk her into this photo.

However, since then, she's seen Santa in an Elmo video. In her world, Elmo is a rock star, and whatever he supports, must be good. So now whenever she sees anything to do with Santa, or Christmas, she gets all excited. It's amazing at the walls Elmo can break down. :) Elmo should be a missionary.